A Study of Corrosion Behaviour for Steels Precipitated with Paraffin Wax Precipitation

Paraffin wax and CO2 corrosion have caused many problems in oil and gas industry. These problems mainly caused in the transportation and utilities where the pipelines are severely corroded. Adding to this situation paraffin wax deposition causing blockage which results flow assurance. Many experiments have been conducted individually on finding the factors that cause corrosion and factors causing wax precipitation. Only a few research relating both the problems together. In this research, the objective is to design and develop apparatus to produce wax onto a steel surface in laboratory environment and to determine the effect of paraffin wax precipitation on the corrosion of steel. In order to complete these objective, wax appearance temperature (WAT) was determine in order to precipitate 1.5mm thick 10% and 30% paraffin wax on the APL 5L X65 steel. Modified cold spot test was designed in order to precipitate paraffin wax on 24oC X65 steel for 24 hours. Before conducting the Linear Polarization Resistance (LPR) experiment for the precipitated samples, a baseline test was conducted using three electrode system in a glass cell to identify the corrosion rate of X65 carbon steel in the 3% NaCl purged with CO2 under room temperature without any precipitation.